Lego’s Julia Goldin Has Mastered Building Brands

The first-ever Lego toy might be unrecognizable to current players: It was a wooden duck, fashioned in a workshop opened by Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen in 1932. The plastic brick—now the cornerstone of the brand—wasn’t introduced until 1949. Today, Lego is known for the colorful bricks that generations of children have spilled onto their bedroom floors, building from their imaginations. But Lego is also a line of theme parks, a film franchise, video games, a reality TV competition, a kids TV series, a magazine, apps—and soon, a metaverse experience. That willingness to pivot and reinvent itself for 91 years has helped make Lego one of the most beloved brands in the world. It has also been the guiding principle of The Lego Group’s chief product and marketing officer, Julia Goldin, who has led the brand for the past nine years. When Goldin joined Lego in 2014, the company was on a high, thanks to a decade of growth. There was no pressing need for her to reinvent the wheel, so instead, she asked, “Can you continue to grow doing exactly the same things, or do you need to bring in something new?” Her answer was the latter. Through product innovation, creativity and inclusive marketing, she has helped steer Lego from “being not just the definitive toy brand for children, but also now an entertainment brand, loved by everyone,” said Goldin, who is Adweek’s first-ever Brand Genius Lifetime Achievement honoree. Goldin built a varied and international marketing career before landing at Lego. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, she studied at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where she was drawn to marketing because of its “combination of art and science,” she recalled. After starting her career at Quaker Oats, Goldin spent 13 years at Coca-Cola, where she held global and regional marketing roles, including deputy CMO in Japan. "That experience was seminal," said Goldin, explaining that Japan is one of Coke’s most inventive markets because it releases many new products that are unique to the country. Next, she worked for three years as global CMO of Revlon, where for the first time she oversaw product development as well as marketing. "In some ways, cosmetics are quite similar to toys, because both are extremely innovation driven," said Goldin, whose experiences at Coca-Cola and Revlon laid the groundwork for her move to Lego. As Goldin began her role at the toymaker, it was riding the wave of 2014’s The Lego Movie, which increased attention, boosted sales and expanded the brand into the realm of film. But, as she observed, Lego “was a brand that was still mostly toys, and more focused on boys. We definitely needed a new injection to get to that next level.” ‘Rebuild the World’—and the brand Goldin saw several areas that were ripe for innovation. One was in products, which she thought could be more inventive to “open up the aperture of what Lego play was all about.” She also wanted to shake up marketing with more digital capabilities and an inclusive approach. Finally, there was the brand itself: Goldin felt it needed to plant a flag in the ground and tell audiences what it stood for. That led to Goldin overseeing Lego’s first brand campaign in 30 years, “Rebuild the World,” in 2019. The insight behind the campaign is that “creativity is misunderstood,” Goldin said—meaning people often delegate creativity to a certain type of person or department in a company. But Goldin came to the conclusion that “creativity has to be fully democratized” and is a core skill that anyone can nurture: “It’s needed in every industry and to meet every important challenge that society faces.” Lego illustrated its role in facilitating creativity in the first “Rebuild the World” ad, in which fantastical toy creations come to life. The campaign has taken on various iterations since and has guided both Goldin and the business as it aims to stay relevant. Shattering stereotypes If creativity were to be democratized, that meant Lego also needed to open itself up to more audiences, starting with girls. The toy industry has long been criticized for perpetuating gender stereotypes and biases. A 2020 report from U.K. charity the Fawcett Society found “lazy stereotyping” by children’s brands and the segregation of toys by gender fueled mental health issues among young people and limited their perceived career options. Keen to break that cycle, Goldin was at the helm when Lego partnered with the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2020 to revamp its marketing. The institute’s research found that 76% of parents would encourage their sons to play with Lego bricks, while just 24% would do so with their daughters. In 2021, Lego pledged to remove gender biases and labels from all its products. Lego Campaign Shows What Happens When Girls Are Free to Play Anything Since then, Goldin has helped Lego overturn gender stereotypes and improve representation both in its marketing campaigns and toys. Its messages of equality are aimed just as much at adults as children. This year, for example, it launched a campaign ahead of the Women’s World Cup, enlisting soccer stars Megan Rapinoe, Yuki Nagasato, Sam Kerr and Asisat Oshoala to champion how girls play. "You have to have a narrative not just with the girls themselves, but with the people who influence them—like their parents, like society," Goldin said. Lego has also changed how it develops products, focusing on children’s “passion points” rather than segmenting by gender, and expanding into different areas like animals and nature, Goldin added. Before working at Lego, Goldin (with Halle Berry) spent three years as Revlon’s global CMO. Projects like 2019’s The Lego Movie 2 have helped Lego remain 'culturally relevant,' said Goldin. Failure is essential However, Lego’s journey to gender inclusivity has not been without its hiccups. In 2020, the company launched a new product line called Dots to break into the arts and crafts category and appeal to more girls. Dots sets consisted of tiles rather than bricks, with patterns for items such as bracelets and accessories. But earlier this year, Lego discontinued the theme. “It was very difficult to break into the [arts and crafts] market because the category is fragmented and quite busy,” Goldin said. “The product was great, but the marketing strategy didn’t work as well as we wanted it to. It was a lesson in how sometimes you need to build on your strengths.” Despite such setbacks, Goldin contends that “failure is a must-have” as a brand leader. Failure can sometimes be an indication that “the brand needs invigoration” or a burst of creativity, she said. Embracing failure is especially necessary in product development, she continued, because there can be no innovation without risk and experimentation. Another example: Lego launched Vidiyo, a music video maker app, in 2021, but discontinued it a year later because consumers found it complicated to use. Not being afraid of all these changes, being brave and being able to learn enough to lead an organization through it are important foundational skills.Julia Goldin However, the flop allowed Lego to learn more about creating fluid play experiences that incorporate digital elements, which have become increasingly important to the brand. Goldin understands this because she is a rare CMO who also oversees product. Lego plans to release about 750 sets this year, half of which will be new products. Being part of this process in turn informs how she leads marketing; she sees the two areas as intertwined. Instead of the traditional way of marketing products—waiting for an item to be designed before determining how to market it—“we think about the holistic experience,” Goldin said. The process of creating a new product “starts with our consumer to understand their big passion points,” she explained. Then, from the product’s inception, “we’re already thinking about, what is going to be the creative experience around it, what are the ways in which we’re going to bring this experience to life?” An example is Lego’s launch of the Peugeot 9x8 Hybrid Hypercar set in June. Instead of promoting it with a traditional ad campaign, a team of designers built a life-size replica of a Peugeot car with Lego pieces during the 24 Hours of Le Mans car race—giving themselves only the duration of the race to complete it. Also in June, Lego unveiled its new Ninjago: Dragons Rising set alongside an animated Dragons Rising TV show on Netflix. “We launched the content series with the products at the same time. It was the most-watched show by kids on Netflix in the first two weeks,” said Goldin. “That’s the power of having brand marketing, content and product live together.” A brand beyond bricks Lego’s Netflix show is one of many examples of how Goldin has helped the brand become much more than bricks. Offshoots like the Legoland theme parks already existed before she joined, but Goldin has supercharged this strategy. One example of this is the Lego Masters reality TV show, which follows teams as they compete to build the best Lego project. After launching in the U.K. on Channel 4 in 2017, it is now available in 20 markets worldwide, including the U.S., where Fox has ordered a fourth season. Lego is also increasingly building its own channels to directly engage fans, such as Lego Life, an app and magazine that launched in 2017. Its YouTube channel, a mix of user-generated and brand-produced content, generated an astonishing 115 billion hours of viewership last year. Lego has extended its brand into different spheres to reach new generations and remain "culturally relevant," Goldin explained. Going back to the message of "Rebuild the World," every effort begins with the belief that "the brand is a canvas for creators. Creators come up with a lot of interesting ideas that they want to express through the brand.” The company has also married cultural relevance with inclusivity by partnering with diverse creators, such as Ghanaian Canadian artist Ekow Nimako, who builds Afrofuturistic sculptures using only black Lego pieces, or actor Samira Wiley, who co-created a 41,000-brick self-portrait for this year’s Pride. Lego 90th Anniversary Campaign Activity Celebrates the Role It Plays in People’s Lives Into the metaverse Lego’s next journey will be into the metaverse. Last year, the company announced a partnership with Epic Games, the publisher of Fortnite, to build a kid-friendly metaverse. Top of their agenda is safety: “Internet 2.0 was not built with kids in mind,” said Goldin. “We partnered with Epic to create an environment that is safe for kids by design, but also an amazing playground where they will be able to not just play, but also to create, engage with others and be part of a community.” Lego and Epic have yet to unveil their co-created digital experiences. But taking an active role in developing the next phase of the internet is part of Lego’s journey to “build direct and personal relationships with all our fans, whether they come from the digital to the physical world, or vice versa,” Goldin said. The metaverse was perhaps the biggest buzz in the marketing industry last year, spawning numerous campaigns and brand forays into that realm, while lately many brand leaders have shifted their focus more to generative AI. Goldin said it is important for marketing leaders to focus on the big picture and stay committed to a long-term vision, rather than get sidelined by the latest trends. “We [as marketers] have a lot of appetite to talk. We don’t have a lot of appetite to actually stay with something,” she said. “We believe, whether it's going to be called the metaverse or not, that there's a new internet coming because of technological innovations that will generate a lot more capabilities, tools and opportunities for people to experience things in very different ways from how they're experiencing them today. We want children to benefit from that.” Goldin’s Marketing Highlights Looking back on her storied career, these are among the accomplishments she’s most proud of. Coca-Cola’s “One Team”: At Coca-Cola, she introduced the “One Team” concept, bringing all of Western Europe’s marketing capabilities and teams under one umbrella. “I truly believe that is the way to be able to deliver something that’s really unique, special and immersive for the consumer,” she said. “Rebuild the World”: Launching Lego’s “Rebuild the World” campaign—and reinventing it for the past four years—has been instrumental in “focusing ourselves on what the brand stands for,” said Goldin. Increasing inclusivity: Along with welcoming more girls, Lego has also focused on becoming more inclusive with LGBTQ+, Black, disabled and neurodivergent communities, among others, by introducing inclusive offerings like a figure in a wheelchair (in 2016) and Braille bricks (in 2020). “We want everyone to be truly included, and we really want to do something about it,” she said. —B.K. Her guiding principles Whether it’s venturing into reality TV or the metaverse, Goldin has "made a fantastic contribution to The Lego Group’s growth. She led the transformation of our portfolio to make it more diverse and attract new fans of all ages," said Niels B. Christiansen, the company's CEO and president. "She has a clear vision on the role we can play at the intersection of physical and digital play and is helping to shape a view of how children will play with Lego bricks in the future." Goldin has been able to steer Lego into these various spheres because of a willingness to “learn and relearn,” she said. “When I started in marketing, media [planning] was done in Excel spreadsheets. Now this whole world has changed completely, and there’s so much innovation,” she said. “Not being afraid of all these changes, being brave and being able to learn enough to lead an organization through it are important foundational skills.” While big egos are rife in the marketing industry, another skill that Goldin has learned to cultivate is “giving people an opportunity to be the best at what they are,” she said. “You have to be able to nurture and build the creativity of others.” In that way, Goldin’s approach is much like Lego’s own ethos: If you give people the tools, there’s no imagining what they might create. This story is part of Adweek’s Brand Genius 2023 honors, recognizing the top marketers who have delivered long-term success for some of the world’s leading brands.

Brand Genius

Her Entire Career, Lego’s Julia Goldin Has Mastered Building Brands, Brick by Brick

The legendary marketer is Adweek’s first-ever Brand Genius Lifetime Achievement honoree

Brittaney Kiefer

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Brittaney Kiefer